This report is exclusive to Accuracy in Media

After a number of years of noted absence, the Center for Security Policy returned to CPAC this year. On Thursday, March 3, the Center presented a “Countering Global Jihad” panel. The panel was moderated by CSP President, Frank Gaffney, and included CSP Vice President Jim Hanson; Danish historian, journalist and author, Lars Hedegaard; British activist and politician, Paul Weston; four-star Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, Jr. (Ret.); and Middle East expert and former CIA case officer, Clare Lopez.

Jim Hanson

CSP VP Jim Hanson outlined a new CSP initiative, the Counterjihad Campaign (www.counterjihad.com). Its purpose is to provide Americans with the facts and the wherewithal to push back in the face of the Red-Green Axis: the leftist/Islamist effort to smear and intimidate Americans who dare to stand up to them.

Hanson related his experience as a second generation immigrant whose family believes in the American values of hard work and patriotism. His family immigrated legally, and enthusiastically assimilated to pursue the American dream. Hanson says that today, “The problem is that we are dealing with a large cohort [of Muslims] who do not, and will not [assimilate]… They’re proudly saying ‘not only will we not assimilate, but we are going to, in some ways, take over your culture.’”

Hanson took a special shot at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). SPLC put CSP on its “Hate Watch” list, calling CSP leaders the standard “Islamophobe” for their excellent work cataloging the subversive activities of Islamist individuals and groups. I have writtenextensively about the SPLC, its communist heritage and calculated “hate” accusations—as advocated by Lenin, Herbert Marcuse and Saul Alinsky—designed to intimidate and silence people. This is a malevolent organization created for the sole purpose of silencing anyone who does not buckle under to the left’s agenda—and makes big bucks while they’re at it. But Hanson put SPLC in its place:

“The bottom line is, it’s not true…When I was in Army Special Forces, one of the main missions was humanitarian assistance. I have built schools, dug wells, immunized hundreds of Muslim kids. And yet I’m anti-Muslim? No…”

It’s not ‘hate’ to love freedom. It’s not ‘hate” to believe that women should not be subjugated… It’s not hate to think that homosexuals shouldn’t be thrown off roofs. It’s love of freedom… That’s something we should be able to stand up proudly and say. That’s American. The people trying to stop that are the political Left—the politically correct police—and the Islamist groups…who are actually pushing an agenda that is not religion. They are doing it under the guise of religious freedom. They believe their totalitarian ideology [Sharia] is mandatory. You can either submit or be conquered. The Counterjihad is for you…to tell you what’s happening and empower you to act.”

Danish historian, journalist and author, Lars Hedegaard, talked about the ongoing mass migrant invasion into Europe. His was a gripping and engaging testimony:

The vast majority have nothing to do with being refugees, they are simply migrants who want to come to our countries and take advantage of our welfare states…in Denmark, where I come from, people don’t have to work. They can come into our country and claim any benefit that a Dane can claim—meaning free housing, free health service, free education, money if you don’t have any…They can also claim the protection of our laws and any of the benefits that accrue to us. And we have to pay for it…Every dime we can save goes to these foreigners, who come uninvited, and claim all the benefits from day one. And this is just one example. The same thing goes for Britain, Sweden, Germany and other countries.

Hedegaard identifies the Schengen Agreement as a main cause of the problem. This agreement, signed in 1995, allows for free, unchecked travel among most European Union countries. Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland are excepted. Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria are candidate countries (although they’d be wise to reconsider the wisdom of joining now). The European Union was supposed to ensure that the EU’s outer borders would seal off EU countries from the outside. But, Hedegaard says, “The European Union, which is a master con artist, did not keep its part of the promise. The outer borders do not exist. Currently anyone can get into Europe…” Watch the whole presentation, here.

Paul Weston

Paul Weston is a former UK Independent Party member and leads Liberty Great Britain, a political party he co-founded in 2013. Weston also spoke about the migrant crisis in Europe. He says Britain is not yet lost, but will be gone in 20 years or so. Sweden is “literally a lost country,” with perhaps five or ten years left. He says:

Malmo, Sweden is now the rape capital of the European continent. Aside from South Africa, I think it’s the rape capital of the world. It is that bad. So we look to Sweden in the way that you need to look to us. And we had, over the last 12 months, 12 mass transit bombings planned for England that our intelligence services, MI5, MI6, managed to stop…and despite this, we keep on saying, ‘you can come into our country…and we have no idea who these people are…

Weston noted how British political leaders refused to acknowledge the terrorist attacks in Britain as motivated by Islam. He said, “This denial of what Islam is, is going to be the downfall of Europe.” He finished dramatically, by saying that we Americans desperately need to retain our First Amendment rights, despite Obama’s efforts to clamp down. “Because unless we can talk about this, unless we can bring it out into the open, you in America will go the same way. You need to stand up and look at what we’re doing and say ‘this is never going to happen here.’” Watch the whole thing.

Admiral James “Ace” Lyons

“Ace” Lyons is President and CEO of LION Associates LLC, a global security, trade, defense and procurement consultancy. A career naval officer, Lyons was, among other titles, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the largest military command in the world. He also served as Senior U.S. Military Representative to the United Nations. As the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) from 1983 to 1985, he advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff and created the U.S. Navy SEAL Red Cell anti-terrorism unit, established in response to the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut. Lyons’ irascible nature, irreverent sense of humor, and forthright, politically incorrect manner endear him to audiences wherever he speaks. This day was no exception.

Marine Barracks Bombing Betrayal

Lyons reveals military history with the unique perspective of being part of that history. For example, he was Deputy CNO when the Beirut, Lebanon Marine barracks was bombed on October 23, 1983. 220 U.S. Marines were killed—the largest one-day Marine loss since Iwo Jima. Twenty-one other servicemen were killed and 60 Americans wounded. The pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) bomb caused a blast equivalent to 21,000 lbs of TNT, and was considered to be the largest non-nuclear explosion ever detonated. Seconds after the Marine barracks attack, another facility housing French paratroopers was also bombed, killing 58 paratroopers and four Lebanese civilians.

As Ace explained, the bombings were carried out by Islamic Amal, a Hezbollah-allied splinter group of the Amal militia headed by Nabih Berri. They were headquartered in a Lebanese army barracks captured in mid-September with the help of Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces. Lyons says the U.S. government knew all this, and had inside sources providing accurate intelligence. Admiral Lyons was tasked with developing a devastating response. “We had the photographs. We had it nailed down. We had the planes loaded…” he said.

He fingers then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger for stopping the raid. According to Lyons, Weinberger told Reagan there was a risk of hitting Lebanese forces. “In other words,” Lyons says, “he sabotaged the strike.” Weinberger also prevented the U.S. military from participating with the French in their planned retaliatory attack in November. As Lyons recalls, “The secretary of defense would not issue the execute order! Unheard of!” He said that George Shultz and National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane “pleaded with Weinberger to release the execute message, and he refused to do it.”

Middle East expert Ken Timmerman, who was reached for comment on this article, recalled the French raid. “I was having a late lunch in the mountains, on my way back to Beirut after another day of covering the siege of Tripoli (Lebanon) in November, 1983, when the French Super Étendards flew overhead for Baalbek on the botched retaliation strike. I recognized the planes, and remember thinking at the time, wonder what they are up to…”

Lyons says to an echo of laughs, “the French dropped two 500 lb bombs and killed a goat.” One assumes he is joking to make a point, but in fact not. According to Timmerman, someone in the French government leaked the attack plan to the Iranians. The planes arrived at Baalbek, dropped their bombs and managed to kill a shepherd and his flock of goats. The targets were long gone.

Apparently the government also had warnings a month earlier that a major attack was in the works, and the military could have been prepared. Lyons relates that NSA had intercepted a message from Tehran to the Iranian ambassador in Damascus, Syria, on September 24, 1983, saying “take a spectacular action against the U.S. Marines.” However, Lyons did not see message until two days after the bombing.

Timmerman says the note was held up by none other than Colin Powell, at the time Weinberger’s military aide. Powell most likely kept it from the DoD chief, Timmerman says, because he believed a strike on Baalbek risked getting the U.S. sucked deeper into Lebanon, at a time Weinberger was lobbying hard to get the U.S. to withdraw from Lebanon. For his part, Weinberger claimed as late as 2001 that “[W]e still do not have the actual knowledge of who did the bombing…” In 2003, the DC Circuit Court sided with plaintiffs in a lawsuit holding Iran responsible for the attack. But in case you had any lingering doubts about Obama’s loyalties, in 2012 he blocked legislation that would have held Iran accountable for the attack.

Lyons hypothesized that the Iranians may have influenced Weinberger’s decision through behind-the-scenes lobbying. While that must remain conjecture, the Iran lobby is forthright these days. In fact, the Obama administration could almost be called a subsidiary of the Iranian government. Recall that prior to the 2008 election Obama had established a secret back-channel communication with Iran through former ambassador William G. Miller. His message was clear: “hold out against the Bush administration on nuclear talks because you will get a much better deal with me.”

Both Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden appear to have been heavily influenced by the Iranian lobby, as have Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ed Markey (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Al Franken (D-MN) through the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC). Biden and Kerry have also been befriended by the American Iranian Council (AIC) and the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN). AIC founder, Housang Amirahmadi, once said he intended to “conquer Obama’s mind.” Biden even suggested sending $200 million to Iran, just for yucks. The nuclear deal includes unfreezing Iranian assets valued between $100 and $150 billion, and the Obama administration will pay $1.7 billion to settle a suit over undelivered military equipment ordered by the Shah prior to the Mullahs’ takeover. Some of these funds will likely be used for terrorist activities, Kerry has admitted.

The bombing remains an open sore for the U.S. Marine Corps, as it should for all Americans. As Timmerman said, “This was a lost opportunity. At the time, a powerful strike on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard troops in Lebanon would have taught Iran not to mess with the United States. Had we struck then, when Iran was severely weakened by its war with Iraq, we might have prevented 30 more years of Iranian state terrorism. As it was, they learned we were weak, and that they could attack us with impunity.”

Ken Timmerman is a rare example of true journalism. He has risked life and limb researching his stories in the Middle East and has developed a network of sources that cannot be made sitting behind a desk in Washington, D.C. Timmerman’s books read like thrillers. His most recent, Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi, brings his deep Middle East expertise into play and is one of the most authoritative books, if not the most authoritative, on the subject.

In his concluding remarks, Lyons offered some pithy reflections on our current state of affairs:

“Their [The Muslim Brotherhood’s] penetration into our systems is as deep, or deeper, than the Communists of the 30s, 40s and 50s.”

“The Communists had Harry Hopkins as their man in the White House… The Islamists have President Obama.”

“On Libya, we changed sides… we provided the armament for the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood militias.”

“Qaddafi was our guy in Libya. He was beating down the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood militias.”

“There was no humanitarian crisis in Benghazi. (The pretext for our involvement in Libya’s civil war was the Responsibility to Protect doctrine—a new idea promoted by George Soros and other radicals that justifies military intervention in any conflict where civilian lives are threatened, i.e. practically anywhere.)

“Qaddafi was ready to abdicate. He entered into negotiations with Carter Ham the AFRICOM commander… for two days. He was ready to go… Ham was directed to cut off negotiations.”

“Here’s the President who received the Nobel Peace Prize for giving a speech. But he couldn’t give three days to work out a truce and save the lives of tens of thousands of people.”

“We had forces that were ready to respond [in Benghazi]… They were enroute…”

Clare Lopez

Clare Lopez is a preeminent Middle East expert. A former CIA case officer for 20 years, she speaks several languages, including Spanish, Bulgarian, French, German, and Russian, and currently is studying Farsi. She has extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counter-proliferation issues. Clare used this forum to call for a change in policy that would explicitly identify Sharia as an “enemy threat doctrine, with the priority objective to counter it and defeat the forces of Islamic jihad globally.”

“Within the global jihad movement threats are myriad, including the deep, systemic, institutionalized penetration by the Muslim Brotherhood…of our national security leadership and apparatus. But Iran is far and away the most critical, dangerous and immediate U.S. adversary in this entire region. The Tehran leadership succeeded in blinding our U.S. leadership to its threat, by an equally deep…penetration of the intelligence community, the White House, the Department of State, and that is by the Iran lobby.”

Clare covered a lot of ground in her remarks. Here are some of the points she made:

Iran’s behavior has gotten worse since the nuclear dear was concluded—a deal which was never signed.

Iran relies on proxy forces for its expansion of power and terrorism, including: Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’ite militias, the Islamic State and the Taliban.

Many of these proxies will be receiving “massive” infusions of the money released by Obama following the nuclear deal.

Money is also being sent to both the Houthis in Yemen and the Assad regime in Syria.

A letter written by Osama bin Laden and seized during the raid on his Pakistani compound, was released recently. It says, “Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel and communication.”

Hamas is working very closely with the Islamic State in the Sinai.

Clare concluded with a call for regime change in Iran and a sea change in U.S. policy. Good ideas that should be considered once President Obama leaves office. There is much more in her presentation. Watch the whole thing.

Conclusion

It was good to see CSP back at CPAC. CSP is one of the few DC organizations willing to confront head-on the difficult subject of Islamist infiltration in the U.S. The Muslim Brotherhood and its sister organizations have pretty well figured out the DC racket and their tentacles have become deeply entrenched in the Washington establishment of both parties. Thus, ironically, CSP is criticized by the establishment when it should be welcomed by them. This is a travesty, because the MB’s goal, aggressively pursued by front groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), is transforming our schools and our government, blinding us to the dangers of Islamic radicalism, creating fertile ground for terrorist attacks in the U.S. and threatening our cherished rights—most immediately the First Amendment.